Photocurrent-voltage of a dye-sensitized nanocrystalline TiO2 solar cells influenced by N719 dye adsorption properties

Titanium particles of single-phase anatase nanocrystallites were prepared by the hydrolysis of titanium tetraisopropoxide. A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) was fabricated by adsorbing cis-bis(isothiocyanato)bis(2,2'-bipyridyl-4,4'-dicarboxylato)-ruthenium(II)bis-tetrabutylammonium dye (N719) onto TiO2 film. The samples were characterized by XRD, TEM, FE-SEM, AFM, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The influence of the acetic acid treatment of TiO2 electrode with different concentrations on the photovoltaic performance of DSSC was investigated. It was found that DSSC had better photoelectric performance when the TiO2 electrode was treated by acetic acid of 0.5 M. An equivalent circuit analysis using the one-diode model was used to evaluate the influences of adsorption quantity and acetic acid treatment on the energy conversion efficiency of DSSC. A nonlinear least-square optimization method was used to determine five model parameters.